These dots are identical in size and placement to the depiction of core columns in fig. 2-1 (a structural framing plan representative of an upper floor in the towers).

Then, the anonymously leaked architectural blueprints of the North Tower gave a more realistic look at the dimensions of the core columns, at various elevations in the Towers. Here the columns' dimensions at the 66th floor are shown.

The cores' columns were massive, as thick as 52"x22" in the lower floors, and most of the perimeter columns in each core maintained these approximate dimensions throughout the lower two-thirds of both towers.

Lastly, the columns from the 33rd floor are juxtaposed with the illustration from FEMA, to show just how inaccurate and misleading the FEMA illustration is.

The core's perimeter columns, in particular, were roughly 300% more massive than the red dots in FEMA fig. 2-2 would lead you to believe.

Replacing misrepresentation with omission, the 9/11 Commission said that

Debunking911, one of dozens of portals for those who choose to promote and defend the government's explanation(s) for the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, includes an illustration used in NOVA's 2002 presentation "Why the Towers Fell", which also chooses to ignore the core columns.

This illustration includes a note that "...this isn't here to show how many stick figures someone can create." - failing to note that the illustration does in fact show 236 of the 240 perimeter columns (all but the four corner columns), more than 80% of all the 'stick figures' which would represent the structural design of the World Trade Center. Basically everything but the core columns, which have been replaced with large horizontal plates.

But of course the failure of NOVA to represent the core columns, like the failure of the 9/11 Commission to acknowledge their existence, helps to reinforce the nebulous proposition that the towers both collapsed under their own weight, simply because the structural supports of a few upper floors were weakened by localized fires and localized fireproofing displacement.

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The development of this project would not have been possible without 911research.com, an invaluable resource for anyone interested in ACTUAL 9/11 RESEARCH, rather than conjecture, hyperbole, and subterfuge.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

The history channel (co-owned by the hearst corporation) ran a two hour piece earlier this week, entitled '9/11 Conspiracies - Fact or Fiction?', in which the editorial staff of Popular Mechanics (also owned by the hearst corporation) were presented as 'experts', nobly 'debunking' various claims cherry-picked from among the thousands of unanswered questions, unaddressed concerns, unresolved anomalies of September 11th, 2001.

The piece featured Purdue's CG simulations of the fluid distribution analysis from AA77 @ the Pentagon, and the more recent World Trade Center impact and core column damage simulation.

Additionally, two other CG animations accompanied the hearst corporation's presentations of the 'conspiracy theories' involving United 93, and American 77 and the occupants of Wedge 1 of the Pentagon.

This entry focuses on the animation for the impact of United flight 93.

here, the history channel shows their version of United 93's last seconds before impact. notice the extremely shallow angle of descent, which would be counter-indicated by dozens of empirical, observable facts - among them the impact crater, the fact that the 'black boxes' were found roughly 30ft beneath the surface, and the fact that one of these black boxes, the Flight Data Recorder, showed that the pitch and attitude of the aircraft at impact was 40 degrees, nose down, inverted, as illustrated here in this model of United 93 built in Second Life:

why bother showing such extravagant animations, if they're not going to stick to the public record?

for more misleading CG animations, see Phase I of Purdue's Pentagon Attack Simulations, featuring an engine-less 757.